It was also hugely helpful that Zach taught her a "go to your bed" command when she's fed. Kibble goes in the treat toy in the center of the room, and he'll make her stay on her bed for a LONG time before releasing her. If she budges early, he'll "eh eh eh!" her and take away the food. Send her back, try again!

Our stays are for agility start lines, and have held up fabulously for such a crazed little dog.

I tell my students stay is made up of two criteria - the duration the dog stays and your distance from the dog. Whenever I increase one criteria I decrease the other. So we work our puppies from one step away building up duration, then take another step back (increase distance) and drop duration down to build it back up again.
We ping-pong difficulty - sometimes you ask for a long stay, sometimes for a short one, sometimes you are close, sometimes you are far away. So it's not a game of constantly making the dog sit longer and longer while you get further and further away (seriously boring game.)
We also ping-pong release to recall and release with the owner returning to the dog.

After your dog understood the sit and down commands perfectly, the next extension is training your dog to stay. Teaching the stay command to your dog may seem challenging, but in my opinion it is well worth to teach. If your dog jumps right back before giving release command and continue the previous activity, the stay command is meant to keep your puppy in sit or down. In my opinion it is extremely important for your dog to learn the stay command because you will be able to have better control over his/her behavior.

I tell my students stay is made up of two criteria - the duration the dog stays and your distance from the dog. Whenever I increase one criteria I decrease the other. So we work our puppies from one step away building up duration, then take another step back (increase distance) and drop duration down to build it back up again.
We ping-pong difficulty - sometimes you ask for a long stay, sometimes for a short one, sometimes you are close, sometimes you are far away. So it's not a game of constantly making the dog sit longer and longer while you get further and further away (seriously boring game.)
We also ping-pong release to recall and release with the owner returning to the dog.

This was how I taught it ..I also taught stop which means I don't care if you're running full tilt in the opposite direction. Stop all movement. She learned both fairly quickly with hot dogs The 3 treats in a line seems like an odd way to teach stay ..more like a way to proof it once you've got a solid stay?

Crossbone has no stay. He LOVES the wait game though. I say "wait.....wait....wait (of a varying number)....OKAY!" and he goes crazy. So he kind of understands the concept and the release word but I haven't really put any effort into a real stay or wait yet lol But he knows weave poles and how to cross his legs. Priorities. :P

I don't really remember teaching my other dogs how to stay vs wait. Jack will stay in any position I put him in & I think I took it for granted. I like the mat idea of teaching stay. I taught Crossbone wait by doing crate games.

I taught stay from day one, with their food bowl. Every time they were fed, they had to sit/stay. Gradually build up time/how far away I am from the bowl before they received their release cue. Using that as a base, it really wasn't difficult to transfer over to a stay command without the food bowl as a cue.